There was a time Ms Peggy Ngwira thought she was worth nothing. But her strong mind refused to let negativity destroy her.
She would rise up. She did, and it has never been the same again. Years later, many people in Malawi, especially in Lilongwe City recognise her as one of the homegrown innovative entrepreneurs of high repute.
When she established Faggy Investments, it was the beginning of a grand dream. and later on, Mother’s Choice Limited. The latter’s processed products are renowned brands in the city.
Today she is one of the role models of young girls in Malawi, creating confidence that a woman can start a business, run it, and succeed. She encourages women and girls to fight it out for their ideas to run, to work on it, to make it work and bear bear fruits.
“I am a woman who started my business with nothing but ideas, a strong mind and determination,” she notes. She transverses her life running Peggy Investment meat processing outlet in Lilongwe and her farms, as well as actively mentoring youths and windows to get out, and be involved in business so as to improve the quality of their lives.
“Some of the youths that I have mentored are doing great projects. I am happy to see windows I have introduced to pig farming, making money and being able to meet their needs,” she says with a smile.
Her long journey to claim business success is turning into a new beautiful chapter, this year. Finally, her factory will start producing bigger volumes of products like- sausages, hams, polonies, bacon, macon, biltongs- all under Mother’s Choice brands.
In the past, the company’s unique selling position has been processing and packaging value-added meat products and supplying large orders to customers’ doorsteps. The firm is scaling up production and introducing new processed products. “Slowly but surely, we are getting more Malawians to love homemade products. One of our main challenges has been people’s preference for imported produce,” she notes.
Who is Peggy
Looking back, the journey to becoming the golden woman she is today was shaped in a way by her mother.
“I grew up seeing my mum as the breadwinner. She was looking after our extended family. She would sell frozen charcoal, second-hand clothes and dry fish, among other things to make ends meet,” she says. Her mother was a very hardworking woman and an entrepreneur in her way, traits Peggy is happy to have inherited from her.
Peggy describes herself as a big dreamer who works very hard to make her dreams come true. She is an entrepreneur, a green approach farmer, a business mentor, a motivational speaker, managing director of Faggy Investments (Mother’s Choice), Likuni Green Farming Ltd, Founder of Amiamo Ministry (NGO) and Co-Managing Director of Daily Fresh a premier outlet for fresh meats, fruits and vegetables.
Peggy has two diplomas – one in administration and the other in Information Technology. But more importantly, she has over the years been attending many entrepreneurship-related seminars, which have been pivotal in helping her manage her business well.
Early after college, she was employed but left to focus on my business. “I have never looked back. I have no regrets,” she says.
The African woman in 20 years
Peggy has big plans for her business. She wants Mother’s Choice brands to become number 1 in Malawi and neighbouring countries. As an African woman, she has faith in Africa. She is looking for partnerships to expand her business throughout Malawi and create an export niche in neighbouring countries.
She says the African woman is the driver of the agricultural sector. She helps in feeding Africa. Today, women like her are adding value to agricultural products, and in the coming years, there will be many more women-owned agricultural processing businesses that are huge.
Quotable quotes
“My hardworking spirit as an entrepreneur has earned me a $40000 grant this year which will enable me to start processing a line of cold meats and smoked products, increase my staff employ qualified people to fit in my new structure.”
“I am into meat processing. I add value to my farm products, that’s pigs and sometimes my chickens. I make pork, beef and chicken sausages and sell fresh meats that are pork, chicken, beef, lamb, goatfish etc., what I don’t have at my farm, I get from the smallholder farmers I work with.”
“Traditionally, our products range from pork, local chickens, hybrid chickens and meat such as beef and goat. This also includes the processing of sausages from pork, chicken and beef. We provide you with our local fish products, namely chambo and usipa. We are adding hams, polonies, bacon,macon,biltongs<”
Mothers Choice Ltd is so grateful for being given an opportunity to be a runner up to this year’s MBC End of Year Innovation Awards in the Agriculture Category at the Sanjika Statehouse on Friday, 20th December 2919.
This is no mean achievement for us, we feel honoured that our little contribution is being recognized and is appreciated.
We may not have brought home the award, but being invited to these awards alone has been encouraging and uplifting.
We thank our dedicated team of young achievers in the catering, production and marketing departments who make it happen every day we salute you, ladies and gentlemen.
Together we can, we are geared to move to another level in 2020.
In all this, we are saying… Jesus, get the glory, for it is you who did this for us.
Long Live Mothers Choice.
